Professional Competencies and Personality Characteristics of Three-Four Star Hotel Chefs in Khon Kaen for Skilled Labors in the ASEAN Economic Community

Abstract

This study aims to investigate professional competencies and personality characteristics of the 3-4 star hotel chefs in Khon Kaen for being a skilled labor in the ASEAN Economic Community. The study highlights the need for the preparation on quality improvement and enhancement of the chefs working in the hotels in Khon Kaen province so that they could develop the professional competencies and personality characteristics of an international skilled labor. The questionnaire was constructed for convenient data collection from 331 chefs in 3-4 star hotels in Khon Kaen. Percentage, mean score, and standard deviation, t-test, f-test (ANOVA), Multiple Correlation analysis and Multiple Regression analysis were used to analyze basic data and statistically test the hypotheses of the study respectively The findings indicate that all competency factors of personal effectiveness, academics, workplace, technical skills, and overall competency were positively correlated with the chefs’ personality characteristics statistically significant at the level of .05. Significantly, the overall competency factor was found to be the most powerful variable on the personality characteristics of the chefs, followed by the academic competency factor, but none of any effect was found from the other three competencies. Keywords: Professional competencies, Personality characteristics, Hotel chefs, Khonkaen, ASEAN